Roosters beat Tigers before record crowd

Sydney Roosters’ move to drop their focus on playing finals football, freed them up to claim just their third win of the NRL season, coach Trent Robinson said.

Captain Jake Friend, halfback Jackson Hastings and prop Jared Waerea-Hargreaves led the Roosters to a 32-18 victory over Wests Tigers in atrocious conditions at Allianz Stadium on Sunday before the lowest ever NRL-era crowd of 3,622.

After a shocking start to the season, three-time minor premiers the Roosters still need to win nine of their last 12 games to qualify for the finals but Robinson said a decision to forget about that prior to the Tigers clash paid dividends.

“That got us a few weeks ago to be honest,” he said.

“We knew they were big games against Gold Coast and Canterbury and we focused on what was months away because we knew it was about time and we didn’t deliver.

“So this week we just focused on playing well against the Tigers.”

Friend was in everything in defence and attack for the Roosters, who were without stars Mitchell Pearce and Boyd Cordner due to injury.